Government cash to help with young people's mental health crisis

As demand for mental health support grows a local counselling charity has been given new funding to provide more services

By Sarah Ward

Sharon Womersley (right) and her staff

Recently a report was published by West Northamptonshire Council which laid bare the issues young people in need of mental health support have been facing since the pandemic. The report found that waiting lists for children in need of specialist treatment from CAMHS (child and adolescent mental health services) had effectively been closed and heard from teachers who were almost in despair after attempting to get their pupils support.

It said urgent action was needed and following the report the council’s Liberal Democrat group has called for a review into reinstating therapeutic services for children in care, which were quietly taken away several years ago when the former county council was cutting budgets ahead of its financial collapse.

In the days following the report’s publication, Northampton-based young person’s mental health charity The Lowdown, announced it was to receive £1.3m in government funding, which will enable it to ext…